Resistance
by Coquillage Atlas
Summary: A sequel to "Conductivity," in which there are grave dealings with Mycroft.
1. Chapter One: Signal

_A story for Sirro134, who requested I write more about John's life after the events of **Conductivity.** :)  
_

* * *

_**Signal**_

* * *

They run.

The early night billows up around them, soft wide wind dashing across their faces and streaming over their swift legs and arms, urging them onward, filling them with the immense energy of the chase. Sherlock and John run, run, _run_. They whisk over the rooftops, free as birds, and before them flee two men: one tall and scrawny, the other short and stumpy and slower than his companion.

Sherlock is fast. But John is at his heels, close enough to hear the detective's choppy breathing.

They leap over a staggering gap of four feet to reach another roof.

Sherlock lands gracefully; his flapping coat spins up around his waist. Thumping down hard on the roof, John catches himself. He is still running, gaining, and then Sherlock has hold of the shorter man's collar. He pulls him down on the roof with a crash.

John shouts at him: "Watch it!"

For the other man has stopped and turned, reaching into his pocket –

And then John is there, _there_. He tackles the taller man around the ankles and brings him down hard. The suspect gasps weakly, the wind knocked from his lungs, and John grabs hold of the man's clammy wrists, forcing them behind his back.

He can't breathe.

He kneels on the grimy rooftop tiles, panting, and blue fire surges painfully behind his eyes. There are bloody tracks across the suspect's pale skin, looping around his wrists; his wild eyes glint back at John in confusion and anger.

"John!"

His name is like a whiplash. John straightens, lifts his head towards Sherlock. He can feel the pebbles in his pocket bounce against each other.

Sherlock stares back at him, the worried knowledge set deep in his sharp face. His opponent is unconscious at his feet, his close-cropped head thrown back against the roof tiles, short arms outspread and empty.

"Got any twine?" John manages.

Sherlock shakes his head. "Lestrade is coming."

John nods. Gradually, the burning power in his hands is receding, flowing minutely back into his chest. The fire coalesces back into coolness and he can breathe easier. The captured suspect squirms beneath him, swearing. Blinking away the last of the pain, John grips his wrists tighter, sets his knee in the man's damp back to hold him down.

"Lie still."

_"Geroff_ me, you-" the man snarls.

John tightens his grasp on the man's wrists, breaking off the rest of the profane sentence. Now he can hear Lestrade clattering up the fire escape; the DI's flashlight beam wavers brightly back and forth across the rooftop as he emerges onto the roof.

"Good work, you two," Lestrade gasps. He's grinning, a brilliant line of teeth in the near-darkness. "Well, there's another case wrapped up."

"Yes," John agrees, still panting.

Lestrade crouches down beside him and cuffs the suspect's hands together. The man stops spitting swear words and lies still, resigned.

Sherlock comes to John, extends a long hand.

John takes it and gets to his feet. He's still shaky from the sudden reappearance of his magic, but as Sherlock lets go he feels the last of it settle back into place. He breathes in deeply, sucking in great gulps of the cool night air.

_That's_ _better_, he thinks calmly, and is once again grateful for his Anchor. He grins at Sherlock.

His friend smiles back, a smile so brief and yet entirely sincere – surprisingly so, for someone as cold and unemotional as Sherlock. And John remembers once again how different Sherlock has been since his return four months ago, how he is more caring, more understanding, more vulnerable. How he seems to have forgotten his hatred for 'sentiment.'

But Sherlock has changed in other ways, too.

John's eyes move to the first suspect, still unconscious. There's a thin line of blood dripping from the corner of the little man's slackened mouth. He crouches down, feels the man's pulse. It's steady, rhythmical. He'll be fine.

Lestrade glances up from his suspect, and John sees the same thoughts mirrored on his expressive face.

Sherlock turns away, looks out over the rooftop.

John shrugs at Lestrade, a clear signal to _drop it_, and the DI shrugs back and rises to his feet.

Sherlock stares into the darkening sky, his hands deep in his pockets.

* * *

A half hour later, with several policemen gathered around the suspects, Lestrade having taken their statements, the two of them go down the fire escape.

At the far end of the dimly lit street, a familiar umbrella furls shut in a whirl of black fabric.

Neither John nor Sherlock notice this; they turn and head towards home, and soft footsteps recede in the opposite direction, going away.


	2. Chapter Two: Shock

_**Shock **_

* * *

_A/N: So, I don't own Sherlock, in case you hadn't guessed that yet. :) And I hope you are all enjoying the story so far! I'm going to be uploading the rest of the chapters over this rest of this week and the next. Feel free to leave reviews, etc. _

_Oh, and the principal characters of this short story (it's around eight smallish chapters) will be Mycroft, Sherlock, John, and another character I invented for the purposes of the narrative._

_And here's the second chapter!_

* * *

John is standing under an awning, cold hands in his pockets, watching the rain pour down. It dances merrily along the pavements, oblivious to his tense stare. Mycroft stands across from him, his ever-present umbrella pointed at the watery ground.

"I suppose you want to know how Sherlock's doing," John says.

He's tired of these meetings. If Mycroft wants to know more about his brother, he should come over to 221B and talk to Sherlock himself. _The Holmes never do anything normally_, he thinks, and pointedly continues to stare at the falling rain and not the tall government man. _I'm sick of this charade._

Mycroft says lightly, "Well, yes."

Out of the corner of his eye, John sees him glance at his expensive watch, and he tightens his lips in annoyance. He's the one being inconvenienced, not Mycroft; he'd been shopping at Tesco's before Mycroft's unmarked car had pulled up and taken him away.

But he takes a deep breath, exhales. "He's fine. Doing as well as can be expected. He's been different ever since he – ever since he got home, but that's understandable."

"And?"

"And he's eating, if you want to know that, too," John says, growing exasperated. "He's still doing his experiments, and working on cases and everything. He's fine. Look, if you really wanted to know, you could come over and see for yourself."

Mycroft hums to himself, amused, and taps his umbrella sporadically against the pavement. "That would be interesting. No, I don't think so, Dr Watson. You know we don't really get along."

Now John looks at him, at this colourless man outlined in equally colourless lines of rain. Sherlock and his brother had used to get along (somewhat); at least they had been on speaking terms, enough so that Mycroft was able to come over to the flat. This sudden distance is new and unsettling. But he knows not to pry. Not yet.

"Anything else?"

"No," Mycroft says. He raises his umbrella, fumbles for a moment with the catch, and then whirls it open. The fabric shades his face, drops his features into a grey darkness. "Take care, Dr Watson. We wouldn't want you to lose your way in this wild world."

He steps quickly away into the rain, and John stares after him, blinking hard. What was that?

Had Mycroft just quoted from Troilus' _Withe Papers?_

* * *

A few hours later, having tried and failed to drive the needling almost-quotation from his mind, John retrieves his laptop from the couch and flips it open. He is about to type Troilus' name into the search engine when he stops, stricken.

He can't search online; Mycroft is surely monitoring his activity. If he doesn't know yet that John is a Withe, he'll grow suspicious at this sudden interest in Troilus' work. John pushes his laptop shut, clamps his mouth in a tense line, and stares blankly at the capsizing, too-full bookshelf across the room.

Sherlock, who's been breaking things in the kitchen, comes into the sitting room. He is followed by a long trail of sulphurous smoke.

"Using that?" he says, and reaches down to take the laptop away.

John lets him, still thinking about Mycroft.

He doesn't have any of Troilus' essays; he was very careful not to check such books out from the library or buy them at used bookstores. He's had to rely on his memory, but he can't quite recall the one he thinks Mycroft was quoting from. Sherlock knows the quotations, but he doesn't want to ask him in the flat.

Sherlock taps away on John's laptop, frowning at the bright screen, and John looks over at him.

His friend is slumped against the wall, wearing shirt sleeves and sulphur-stained trousers; his tousled curls look as though he hasn't brushed them in a week. This is because Sherlock tends to run his hands through his hair when he's agitated.

John thinks to himself, watching him, that Sherlock's been agitated ever since he came back.

"Fancy a walk?" he asks, jerking his mind away from that subject. It's still too painful to remember, that grey empty feeling when his best friend was gone. Not gone, but missing; dead. Dead in every sense of the word, except the most important one.

"Where to," Sherlock murmurs, still tapping.

He grimaces at whatever's on the screen (something about gourmet chocolates, John half-glimpses), sighs gustily, and shuts the laptop. Then he looks over at John, and his pale eyes track across his face, reading everything: the flicker of his eyelids, the curve of his mouth, the faint indentations in his brow.

John looks placidly back at him. Sherlock's scanning has intensified since his return; it's another thing he's had to get used to.

"I see," Sherlock says shortly, and John is certain that he does. He drops the laptop onto the arm of the couch. "Let me get my coat."

* * *

They go down to the river and stand at the matted brim of the bank, bundled up against the gloomy cold. John watches leaves and trash float by on the swell of the bluish water. The river's risen since the morning's rain. On his right, Sherlock pulls a lighter from his pocket and flips it over and over between his long fingers. He's been trying to give up cigarettes again.

John says, "I had another meeting with Mycroft today."

"He said something." Sherlock flicks the lighter open and watches the flame dance, then flicks it shut again. He does it again, twice, and John watches his fingers flutter rapidly over the silver latch. "You're upset."

"I think he might have quoted from Troilus. From _The Withe Papers._" John swallows. "Just the end of one of the better-known ones – something about the 'wild world.'"

Sherlock slips the lighter into his pocket, his eyes turning glassy. "Ah. _I wepe for song, to drone the sharpe noise, but the worlde is fulle wilde." _

His pronunciation is perfect, John notices: all harsh consonants and muddy vowels.

Sherlock clears his throat and says it again, this time in proper English. "I weep for song, to drown the sharp noise – or sounds – but the world is full wild. Or wholly wild. It depends on your interpretation, really."

John nods. "That's it. I was going to look it up-"

"But you didn't, that's good," Sherlock interrupts, sounding distant. He crosses his arms (something he hadn't used to do, something he'd picked up when he was away) and glares out over the river, clearly turning this new information over in his head.

John waits.

After a moment, his friend asks, "Did he say anything else? Anything that was different than usual?"

"No," John says. "Not really."

"Then we'll have to wait." Sherlock uncrosses his arms and tilts his head to one side. _This _gesture John recognizes; it signals that things are whirring together in Sherlock's head, all the gears turning in tandem, and soon he'll have a mad, outrageous plan.

"Or perhaps we'll instigate something ourselves," he says.

He takes out his lighter again, produces a cigarette from nowhere, and lights it. John watches this with obvious indecision.

"Sherlock," he begins, "I thought you were-"

"I am trying to stop," Sherlock agrees, sticking the lit cigarette in the corner of his mouth, "but I'm sure my brother is watching us, and there should be a good reason for you dragging me out here on such a blustery afternoon. Act angry. Go on, it's not that hard. Look, I'm smoking, see?"

He takes a long pull on the cigarette. John rolls his eyes (not in anger, but disapproval), glares vindictively, and turns his back. Then he moves away, taking exaggerated footsteps to indicate his displeasure.

"See," Sherlock says quietly, as he follows along behind him, puffing madly on his cigarette, "you just gave me a good talking-to about my resurrected smoking habit. That's why we spent so long out here, and why I glared darkly into the distance. Now walk faster. You aren't stomping enough."

"I don't stomp," John snarls, half-amused, half-annoyed. "Come on, then. I _should_ be giving you a talking-to. I can't believe you've started again. Where are all your nicotine patches, anyways?"

The two of them argue the rest of the way to the flat, completing the illusion, and Sherlock slams the front door to add to the verisimilitude. By then he's less inclined to throw out his cigarette; John has to shove a finger in his face and threaten to confiscate his sulphurous experiment before he finally (sulkily) agrees.

* * *

Two hours later, the cigarettes are all gone, some taken by John, some thrown out the window (also by John). Sherlock is pacing up and down in the sitting room, his hands behind his back, glancing occasionally at the ceiling. But mostly his eyes are fixed, unseeing. He's thinking.

His phone buzzes on the sofa cushion, once, twice, three times, but he ignores it. _Caller: __**Mycroft **__**Holmes**__,_ the identification reads, but the nameplate dims, fading away as the phone stops ringing.

Sherlock continues to pace.

Outside, the glow of the streetlamps waver behind a thin mist.


	3. Chapter Three: Friction

_**Friction**_

* * *

It is three days later when Mrs Hudson answers the door to find Mycroft standing on the doorstep. His bony shoulders are set and stiff under his pewter-coloured coat; he clutches his umbrella in one tense hand.

"Long time, no see, Mr Holmes," she greets him, smiling bashfully up at his dour face. She's been baking, and the downstairs flat is filled with the buoyant scent of cinnamon and chocolate. "The boys are upstairs. Would you fancy a cup of tea? Or a chocolate scone? I've just made some; they're quite fresh."

Mycroft grimaces. It seems he thinks this is a polite smile, for he always employs it when such things are called for. "No, thank you. Good afternoon, Mrs Hudson. I'll just go up. No need to bring tea."

He goes past her, still grimacing, and steps cautiously onto the stairs. Then he sighs, and reaches for the banister.

* * *

It's a Tuesday. Sherlock has just finished another case, a very short one, which involved the discovery of human bones in a massive vat of boiled peanuts. He's been at John's throat all morning; boredom remains his greatest enemy.

John, finally driven upstairs after yet another bout of Sherlock's moaning and griping and shoe-throwing, is rereading one of his blog entries before posting it. He hears heavy footsteps on the staircase. Frowning, he clicks the _Save_ button on his entry and goes to stick his head out of the door.

"Good afternoon, Sherlock," says Mycroft's even voice.

John curses under his breath and darts back into his room to shut his laptop. Then he closes his door silently and goes down the stairs, pausing to take off his single sock – he'd lost the other one in his bad-tempered march up the stairs earlier. As he drops it on top of its twin on the third step, he can hear Sherlock growling.

Not a true growl, but the kind of tone Sherlock employs when he's angry with someone he knows very well.

"I didn't expect to see you here, Mycroft."

There's a distinctive lack of boredom in his voice; he sounds worried, angry, and hopeless all at once. John frowns and stops at the door, unwilling to go in just yet; he knows Mycroft can hear the nuances in Sherlock's voice too. But Mycroft doesn't answer.

_Well, then I'd better go in_, he thinks, and he turns the doorknob.

* * *

The scene he walks into is completely foreign to him, and yet it appears very familiar at first glance.

Mycroft is standing in front of the sofa, one hand in his pocket, one perched on the handle of his umbrella, staring disapprovingly down at his brother. But he has not quite got the emotion down perfectly: there's tension behind the disapproval, tension and worry.

Sherlock is prone on the sofa, his gaze turned to the fireplace. One wiry arm is draped over the edge of the cushion. There's a blue lighter in his hand, and it's open. The flame hovers gently just before the rug.

"Afternoon," John says, casting Sherlock a swift, non-judgemental glance. _Just don't burn the flat down._ "Tea?"

"No, thank you," Mycroft replies, twitching his lips into an impersonation of a smile.

John suppresses a blink. Mycroft always takes tea.

But the government man has turned his attention back to his brother. He sighs. "Sherlock, you'll set the rug on fire. Not that it isn't a perfectly horrid shade of red, but I'm sure your landlady would disapprove."

"What _are_ you doing here," Sherlock says. His voice is flat, toneless. He lowers the lighter closer to the crimson fibres of the rug, and John winces, preparing for a line of flame. He can probably make it to the kitchen and grab a cup of water before the rug is entirely ruined.

"Last time I saw you-"

Sherlock stops. Mycroft closes his eyes very briefly; the hand on his umbrella trembles violently.

John looks back and forth between them, utterly confused. The pain (or whatever it is) is as palpable as if it were a blazing neon sign hanging above their heads.

"I'll be out – getting tea," he volunteers, and makes to escape.

But Sherlock sits up, flicking the lighter shut in the same instant, and Mycroft steps back, almost colliding with the coffee table. His pale eyes are wide; he seems to have just reached an unforeseen conclusion about something. John comes to a halt.

"No need," Sherlock says. He doesn't look up, not at either of them. "Mycroft was just leaving."

A moment passes, and then Mycroft nods, jerkily. Slowly, slower than John has ever seen him move, he manoeuvres around the coffee table, inclines his head stiffly in John's direction, and lets himself out.

There's the soft thud of footsteps on the stairs, Mrs Hudson's surprised voice, the door opening. Then it closes with a muffled click, and there is only silence.

Sherlock reaches forward and lifts a file from the coffee table.

"What's that?" _And what was all of _that _about?_

"This, John," Sherlock says, without interest, "is why Mycroft claims he came to see me. Something to do with one of his contacts. It's irrelevant."

He rises to his feet, walks around the coffee table, and for a long moment John is afraid he's going to throw the file in the fire. But Sherlock stops at the mantel, pauses, then reaches up and sets the file next to the skull.

John sits down on the sofa. "Sherlock."

No reply; John hadn't really expected one. Sherlock rolls his shoulders, laces his hands behind his back. He stares a second more at the mantel. Then he turns and looks at John.

"Is something wrong?" John ventures. "You and Mycroft... It's worse than it's been."

If this had been two years earlier, Sherlock would have made a caustic remark and stalked out. Not anymore. He raises one shoulder and lets it drop.

John lifts an eyebrow at him, trying to discern his meaning.

Then Sherlock slumps despondently into his chair. "It's nothing, John."

"Sherlock," John says, struck by how drawn and sad his friend's face is, and stumbles to a halt. He doesn't know how to say this correctly. He doesn't want to hurt him.

Oh, fine, he'll just dive in.

"Did something happen when you were away?"

Sherlock says, very slowly, "Things are different, now. Things – something happened, yes. It doesn't do any good to talk about it."

He glances over the bookshelf's contents, rubs his forehead, and reaches up to pull down a thick, blue-striped book.

"Do you want takeout?" he asks, offhandedly, as if they've started a new conversation.

John almost chokes on his next words. "Do I want – do I want _takeout?_ You don't eat, Sherlock. Why are you asking?"

Sherlock, pretending oblivion, turns a page in his book.

John doesn't quite know what to do. This is different, this is _weird_. He should _do_ something – he should _say _something – he should probably go get takeout.

"When I come back," he warns Sherlock, "you're eating something."

Sherlock nods and turns another page, his eyes narrowed. John knows he's not actually reading. But he gets up. They can talk when he comes back. He just needs to give Sherlock some time to think about it.

But clearly, whatever had happened with Mycroft is monumental.

* * *

They don't talk about it when he comes back, either. Instead, after poking at a tiny carton of spiced chicken and noodles, Sherlock plants himself in his bedroom with the door closed. John stays in the sitting room, picking half-heartedly at his food. He picks up his mug of tea and drinks, thinking.

Could be something about him, about his absence? Perhaps Mycroft had kept current information about John from Sherlock?

_No_, he decides, _it's probably something else, something more pertinent to what Sherlock was _doing_. Yes, I wasn't there to support him, but Mycroft had nothing to do with that. _

Sherlock has told John a brief outline of his work when he was away, given him the bare minimum of information. He'd tracked down Moriarty's remaining men, turned some over to Mycroft to deal with, and sent others to far-off prisons. Two, he killed. John doesn't know much beyond that; Sherlock hates talking about it, and has hardly done so.

Perhaps Sherlock's angry about something that Mycroft didn't do. Maybe he jeopardized something, something important, maybe he lost one of Moriarty's men and Sherlock had to find him again... Maybe Mycroft made a mistake, and Sherlock saw innocents die. Maybe he's angry over something trivial, something that hardly matters anymore, and it's just the aftermath of his leaving that's bothering him and digging a trench between him and Mycroft.

_You should just ask him, you idiot. _

But he doesn't know if Sherlock will want to answer. Perhaps he should let Sherlock think it over on his own, let him decide to tell John in his own time. Maybe Sherlock will never tell him, but it doesn't matter, as long as he recovers from this depression. There's things he's never told Sherlock himself, things that happened in war that he can hardly bear to remember.

So he'll refrain from asking him. He'll give Sherlock time.

John, awaking from his reverie, stares down at his wilted noodles. The chopsticks are tight and sweaty in his left hand.

Taking an automatic, rather repugnant bite, he glances up at the fireplace. His eyes focus on the mantel, drift over the Chinese puzzle box and the melted black candles, then over the skull. He stops.

The file. It's gone.

Immediately he assumes Sherlock has tossed it into the flames. He leaps up and marches over to the fireplace, leaning down to stare into the ashes, and waves a hand over the grate. No, everything's quite cold. So it's not been burnt, then. Which means...

He hears Sherlock's door swing open, and turns around.

Sherlock is standing in the doorway of the sitting room, holding Mycroft's file. He looks particularly manic: his grey eyes are slits, his nostrils flared. His hair stands on end, drawn wildly back from his angular face.

"John, go pack," he orders, flapping the file commandingly. "We're going to Prague."


	4. Chapter Four: Charge

_**Charge**_

* * *

The taxicab speeds sleekly along the endless city road. John leans back against the seat, sliding his fingers along the smooth edges of his phone, listening to gentle strains of classical music hum from the cab's radio. Sherlock is preoccupied with flipping back and forth through Mycroft's file. He hasn't said anything for several minutes, though John thinks he must have everything memorized by now. It isn't like him to spend so long with a case file. But maybe he is more careful now than he was before.

John gazes through the side window, sees sunlight glimmer off the windows of the passing houses, and remembers a dream he'd had when Sherlock was away.

* * *

It had been bright outside; bright as daytime, but it was the light of the moon by which he saw. He had been standing on the doorstep before their flat, looking out into the street, and the moonlight fell all around him like a spotlight. The windows in the shops and flats shone like silver, and he saw them as though he had never seen them before, all brilliant squares and rectangles of exquisite glass.

In the dream he had wondered if this was how Sherlock saw the world, if everything was always glowing with its own essence. And he had felt the gnawing pain of separation there, even in the dream, even when he could have pretended Sherlock was alive.

Across the street one of the windows had opened. Someone had held both hands out, palms upward. They were dirty palms, blackened with soil, wet with blood, and John had reached for the doorjamb of the flat, to pull himself inside and away from the sight of those desecrated hands.

But he couldn't. He found himself staring at the hands and thinking of Sherlock, dead Sherlock, and in his mind the two came together like magnets. He _had_ to help this person, had to clean those hands, had to heal them.

Then he was off the steps, moving towards the open window, reaching for the outstretched hands. He had hardly touched them, hardly felt the old dirt crumble beneath his fingers, felt the moist sludge of muddied blood, and suddenly the air was filled with bombs and fireworks, with screams, hoarse racking screams, like those of dying animals.

He'd woken to the sheets twisted around his face and neck and to the sound of his own gasping. But he hadn't been crying; he felt more bereft than grieved. He lay in his bed, breathing harshly, unable to move for a long time.

* * *

He hadn't remembered the dream until now.

He is thinking about it, worrying at his lower lip, when Sherlock looks up from his file abruptly and glances sideways at him. John looks back at him for a scant moment, then away, as Sherlock drops his eyes back to the file. The detective appears to have regained some measure of calm. He is not as drawn as before, but he is still too pale and there are definite marks under his eyes.

John's phone chimes: it's a text from Sarah. She's acknowledging that he can take two weeks off from the clinic, but reminds him that this is the third month he's done so. John sighs, conceding her point, and sends her _Thank you, and I'll try not to let it happen again_ back. He looks back out of the window.

Sherlock's deft fingers move automatically through the papers, shuffling them together, folding down corners.

It is a long time before they come to the airport.

* * *

Hours later, both weary and travel-worn, they book two rooms at a nondescript hotel. Sherlock knocks on John's door a few minutes after he's finished unpacking, a dull sound hardly discernible over the aggravated rumble of the wall heater.

John opens the door and lets him in. "Something wrong?"

"No." But Sherlock walks over to the window, crossing his arms over his chest. An unlit cigarette hangs limply from the fingers of his right hand.

John watches him stare outside, his grey eyes unblinking. Casually, he turns back to his luggage, taking out neatly folded shirts and trousers and putting them into drawers. It's cold here in Prague; he's already wearing a jacket, even in the relative warmth of his room. But Sherlock only has on a thin long-sleeved shirt and slacks.

"Lovely night."

"Hmm?" John packs the rest of his clothes away and straightens. "Is it?"

Sherlock nods, his face close to the window, his profile illuminated by the warm glow of yellow streetlights. "Come see."

John shoves his suitcase under the bed and joins his friend at the window. Prague lies open and inviting under their gazes, all soft-hued and glittering, with great blue-windowed buildings rising up to the expanse of a long dark sky. Sherlock is right. It is lovely.

He looks out, watching a solitary, tiny airplane speed through banks of grey clouds, vanishing again and again from view until it curves hurriedly past the window and is gone.

"Sherlock," he says, "why are we here?"

"A woman is dead." Sherlock runs a finger down the wooden slats of the window frame.

John turns away from the view of Prague's skyline. "She committed suicide, Sherlock."

He's speaking of the file Mycroft gave them. Going to the bed, he lifts it from the brown coverlet. There's not much left of it: Sherlock discarded much of its contents before they boarded the airplane back in England.

There are only two newspaper clippings now. John opens the folder and takes these out.

A dark-haired woman looks out at him from the grainy photograph of the first. Her widely-spaced blue eyes are calm, intelligent. Her name is Marianne Greene, and she was twenty-six and alone when she stepped off the Charles Bridge in Prague, slipping into the cold waters of the Vltava River. Mycroft has been very clear on this matter: her death was a suicide.

Sherlock only takes murder cases.

"It won't be long, John," Sherlock says swiftly, and he looks up. "Just a few days. I want to look through her apartment. I would like to ascertain that I'm correct about the nature of her death."

John wants to argue with him about this, to point out that he's never done this before, but he stops himself. Sherlock is different now; he's changed since he was away. Why should he deny him the chance to do something new?

"Alright, then," he decides. "But I'm going to bed now. It's late."

Sherlock turns away from the window, his face unreadable, and nods. "Goodnight."

He goes out, dropping the cigarette in the bin as he leaves. John locks the door behind him, still holding the two insubstantial newspaper scraps. Something is not right about this case, if even _Sherlock_ wants to stay and verify his hypotheses. He looks down at the first clipping, a short article about Marianne's disappearance, shakes his head. Nothing here.

He drops the first one onto his bed and glances over the second, cupping the thin, inky paper in his hands under the strong glow of the bedside lamp. She had tied a canvas bag of rocks around her ankles before jumping, and in her pockets the police had found two hairpins, a pink lipstick, a pocketknife, and a crushed flower.

A crushed flower.

John had assumed it was a gift from a boyfriend, or maybe something she'd found on the street and decided to keep. But now, with the added suspicion of Mycroft's vague quoting and Sherlock's strange behaviour, he traces a thumbnail under the words _crushed flower_.

* * *

Sherlock opens his door at John's insistent knocking. He is dressed in wrinkled, indigo-striped pyjama bottoms and a hastily donned T-shirt. It's bunched up around his waist, and his hair is crazily askew.

"Come in," he sighs, and John shoves the newspaper clipping in his face as he shuts the door. "What is it?"

"I think she's a Withe." John is speaking so fast he's not sure Sherlock can understand him; he waves the clipping before the detective's cool eyes. "I think Marianne Greene was a Withe. Look, look at this clipping. A _flower_ – they found a _flower_ in her pocket, Sherlock."

The consulting detective does not look entirely convinced, but he takes the clipping from John and rereads it.

"Inconclusive," he says, handing it back. "Women are prone to carrying flowers. Suitors, boyfriends, husbands, friendly children – all of them give flowers to women. She put in her pocket and forgot about it."

John shakes his head emphatically, pressing the clipping between his hands. "Sherlock, there's the rocks, too. She tied a bag of _rocks_ to her ankles. And she jumped into a _river_. It's all nature, all natural elements. She was trying to hide her powers. She didn't want anyone to know, even after she was dead."

"Bridge-jumping is a common form of suicide among women," Sherlock retorts. "It's not as disfiguring as a gunshot."

"She could have taken poison, then," John counters. "What else did the file say that might show she's a Withe?"

Sherlock presses his lips together, throws his hands in the air as if to say _why me_, and then sits precipitously on the bed with a loud thump.

"Fine. _Fine_. Alright. The file mentioned that she mostly kept to herself, that she was not a heavy drinker, and that she liked to take long walks in the park. And that on the night she died, she had met with someone in a bar, an older man, and cried openly during their meeting."

John's chest tightens; he has to grip the bedstead to stay upright.

The consulting detective looks at him, his hands fisted in the beige coverlet.

"Sherlock," John says, fighting to keep his voice even, "Those are things I do. And it sounds like – it sounds like she told someone about what she was. It sounds like she may have told him she was a Withe."

His friend sighs, and nods, finally. His eyes are dark. "And perhaps, if you are right, she died because of it."


	5. Chapter Five: Resistivity

_**Resistivity**_

* * *

"You suspected this," John says the next morning, when they are eating breakfast in the sunlit dining room downstairs. Around them the big white-washed room is noisy with chatter and clattering silverware; they can speak without being overheard. He cuts his poached egg into neat slices, reaches for the pepper. "You'd already figured it out."

Sherlock is nursing a glass of orange juice, turning it between his hands while ignoring two pieces of dry toast. "Yes, but I needed to know if someone who understood such things could come to the same hypothesis on their own. I didn't want to push you into a conclusion, and I wasn't entirely sure of it myself. However, your reaction proved what I already suspected."

"But we're still going to her flat." John swallows his slippery bite of egg, stabs another.

"Yes." Sherlock puts down his glass. "We are."

* * *

Marianne Greene's flat is a few blocks away from the museum where she worked. It is three stories up from the little street below, nested in a tall, curlicued building with browning stonework. Sherlock doesn't try to talk his way into her flat. Instead, he and John wait until nightfall, then break in.

This is dangerous, but they've done it so many times that it functions like clockwork, and neither of them is worried.

They go in together and take one of the elevators to the third floor, an ascent John always compares to bubbles rising bumpily through water. But this time he thinks of Marianne's death, and can't quite repress a twinge of repulsion at the idea. Bubbles in dark river water, spilling from the corners of a woman's clamped mouth… No. He won't think about it.

He stands guard at the end of the hallway while Sherlock picks the lock.

And then they both go in, into this dead woman's musty flat. It is spare, neat, tidy. Unremarkable. The walls are plastered in plain blue paper; the bare floor is polished wood. John lifts a paperweight from a side table, turns it over in his hands, noting the thin veneer of dust on the orange glass, the butterfly trapped inside.

Sherlock moves methodically through the flat, examining counters and tables and drawers, his flashlight running over paper plates, old silverware, a few antique glasses. This woman lives alone. She has never been in love. Most of her relatives are dead or ignored.

He goes back into her bedroom, his opinions confirmed, and finds John looking through her papers. There are no letters from home, nothing to suggest she had friends. John kneels on the worn carpet, fingering a mobile phone bill, then stands and nods at the dresser.

"Just socks and things inside," he begins, but Sherlock has already opened the top drawer and is digging through it. "Some jewellery. I don't think she ever wore it. And these papers are mostly from her work or bills. However…"

He trails off, and Sherlock glances up at him expectantly. John's mouth twitches at the corners; he's standing with his hands in his pockets and rocking back and forth on his heels. "You should take a look in her closet."

Sherlock breaks off examining the drawers and gets up. Carefully, he opens the closet door.

Then he begins to laugh, his deep chuckles strained, unreal. John flinches at the sudden rush of unexpected giddiness.

"John," Sherlock gasps, "John, I think we were right. Completely right. Look at all of this! Just _look_ at it!"

Marianne Greene's closet is overflowing with flowers: large spreading bouquets of roses, tiny corsages of carnations and daisies, hand-sized gardenia blooms, pear-shaped tulip petals. All are dried, except for one: a delicately potted plant with blue, drooping flowers. Sherlock lifts it out, still chuckling.

"_Myosotis scorpioides,"_ he murmurs. "The forget-me-not flower. The same flowers as the one she had in her pocket. Well, John, have you figured out her power yet?"

John shrugs. "Something to do with plants?"

"Maybe. I don't know," Sherlock admits, sober again, and carefully sets the forget-me-not back on the shelf. "These plants could simply be means of hiding her magic, not an indication of her power. But it doesn't matter. Let's go. We've been here long enough."

They make their way back through Marianne's flat, their flashlight beams flickering over the empty, dusty furniture, glancing off old knick-knacks, and John wonders if someday someone will walk through their flat and pick over their things, looking for clues. He finds himself hoping no one has to do such a thing; it would mean Sherlock or he had been murdered, and the job would probably fall to Lestrade.

* * *

They come home three days later, having found out nothing else. Not even Mycroft can ascertain the identity of the mysterious man Marianne spoke to at the bar, and so they have nothing else to do in Prague. Sherlock, however, is the one who decides to leave.

John had come back to his hotel room on the last evening, carrying crackly bags of crisps and icy, finger-numbing bottles of water. He'd opened his door, and Sherlock had been sitting in the sagging chair at the window, eyes half-closed, fingers propped under his chin.

Next to his left foot, glowing at the ceiling, lay his mobile phone.

John set down the supplies and shut the door as quietly as possible, turning the lock.

But Sherlock straightened in his chair, his eyes blinking open. Immediately, even before glancing at John, he reached down and picked up his phone, dropped it into his coat pocket. His face was pale, wan; the skin stretched tight over his cheekbones and forehead.

"Dinner?" John held up a bag of crisps. "Are you hungry?"

Stiffly, Sherlock shook his head.

"Not even water?"

He didn't answer. His lips moved, but nothing came out. There was a small red-and-white cardboard box on the floor behind his chair: cigarettes spilled out of it, tumbling over the ugly beige carpet. Sherlock's blue lighter sat on the windowsill, greasy from the marks of his fingers.

John's eyes moved from the box, to the lighter, to Sherlock's trembling hands, which clung clammily to the arms of his chair. Then to the phone, still lit and shining in his coat pocket.

He put down the bag, crossed the room, and stopped beside him.

"Sherlock."

The detective tightened his grip on the chair; John heard his fingers crack.

"Sherlock, look at me. What's wrong? Are you alright?"

This roused him at last. He looked up, blinking feverishly. "Yes. I'm fine."

John didn't know what to make of this; he could not believe he was lying. "Sherlock-"

"We're going home in the morning," Sherlock said, talking over him, and stood up. "We're going back to London. And now I'm going to bed."

John let him pass, watched as he walked slowly, too slowly, to the door, his coat falling limply around his slumped form. For a moment he thought Sherlock would stop, come back, explain. But he did not. He opened the door, gone into the hallway. He let the door fall shut behind him, and John heard him unlock his door and go in.

* * *

Now they are home, and John is at a loss. He doesn't know how to convince Sherlock to tell him what has happened; he suspects the problem, whatever it is, must lie between Sherlock and Mycroft, but he cannot confirm it. Nor can he call up Mycroft and ask him without betraying Sherlock's confidence. He doesn't know what was on Sherlock's phone that night. It could have been a text, a voicemail, or a webpage – any could have rattled him, for any number of reasons: a death in the family, a reminder of Moriarty, an article on his supposed suicide. John doesn't know. He'd asked, very gently, but Sherlock hadn't answered.

Sherlock is withdrawn and unsociable, even to John, only coming out of his room to use John's laptop or the loo. He's stopped doing experiments, stopped working.

Today he'd gotten a text from Lestrade. John had heard it chime in Sherlock's room, and heard the phone thump to the ground. If it was about a case, Sherlock doesn't want to take it. John thinks he's not even answered the text.

And this is why, instead of going to the clinic or visiting Sarah or calling his sister, John is waiting in the sitting room three days after their return to London.

Mrs Hudson comes upstairs periodically to check on the two of them (John's warned her that Sherlock's out of sorts, and therefore very subdued), and bring food. A platter of homemade biscuits sits at John's elbow, a cake is steaming on the empty kitchen counter, and there are three casseroles languishing in the fridge.

But John's not hungry. He waits in his chair, thumbing blindly through his phone, and watches the light from the open window dance on the opposite wall. Spring is nearly here; he can hear birdsong even in the flat, with his back to the breeze. John yawns, rubs his jaw, and drops his head against the back of his chair. He's tired, tired of worrying and not sleeping. He's tired of thinking about Marianne Greene.

She was so young, and she died for nothing, absolutely nothing, if their theory is true. Died for nothing but being herself, for telling someone about her magic. And he is afraid something may happen to Sherlock, and to himself, if anyone ever discovers their secret.

It had never seemed quite real before, the danger surrounding his healing magic. But now he can only think of a dark-haired woman floating in a river, her feet drawn downwards by a bag of rocks, her eyes wide open, afraid. He cannot imagine dying like that, unknown, invisible, alone, trapped far below the surface of the river, waiting for the last breath to seep away and the stagnant water to rush into your lungs.

He remembers a few lines from one of Troilus' papers:

"_You wyll not onderstand unlesse you are lyke me. For a Withe con not be seuen clyere unlesse the othre is a Withe as wel. The Anchor may ayen comen to onderstand the Withe he is bounde to, but we are almost alwise allone."_

John disagrees. The quote works both ways. Yes, Withes cannot be fully understood, but then can anyone else, either?

_For surely we are all alone sometimes_, he thinks.

And so he sits in his chair, waiting for Sherlock to come back to him.

* * *

_A/N: The translation of Troilus' quote:_

"_You will not understand unless you are like me. For a Withe cannot be seen clearly unless the other is a Withe as well. The Anchor may come to understand the Withe he is bound to, but we are almost always alone."_

_I welcome reviews, suggestions, questions, etc. - anything, really! :)_


	6. Chapter Six: Force

**_Force_**

* * *

_A/N: Thanks for the reviews! I welcome suggestions, comments, questions - anything, really :)._

* * *

A week passes, and Mycroft comes to Baker Street. Mrs Hudson isn't home; she's away visiting her sister. He lets himself in and goes upstairs.

John hasn't called him; hasn't met with him. In fact, he's unsure he even needs his help.

Sherlock has begun eating again, small bits of Thai takeout, sips of water, selective bites of Mrs Hudson's biscuits, and he hasn't smoked for two days. He's still ignoring Lestrade's texts, but he _has_ been speaking to John again. Little things, such as the randomly hissed "bored" or "idiot," but it's enough to give John some peace of mind.

Perhaps he will be back to normal soon.

So when John comes into the sitting room, having just returned from the clinic, and finds Mycroft sitting in Sherlock's chair, he is understandably surprised. He stops in the doorway of the sitting room, wondering how best to proceed. He's tired, and he's afraid this is going to be a long conversation. And something tells him Mycroft isn't there for a social visit.

"Dr Watson." Mycroft's gaze is fixed, level. "I understand Sherlock has been under some stress lately."

John considers him, his clenched hands, his emotionless facade, and can hardly contain himself.

"You think so, do you?"

"I _do_ pay attention," Mycroft remonstrates. "I simply want to know if he's better."

"Why don't you ask him yourself?"

The government agent swallows convulsively, then again. John abruptly feels as if he's watching something rather personal, and he looks away.

"I did. An hour ago. He – he doesn't want to talk to me."

There's a wealth of sorrow in Mycroft's breaking voice. John wants to leave, wants to let him suffer on his own; he even glances at the door, considering it.

But then he stops himself, draws a silent breath.

He walks over and sits down on the sofa. His words are precise, even. "Tell me what's going on. Tell me why Sherlock is so upset."

The government man looks straight at him.

John can finally see the family resemblance in those piercing pale eyes; Sherlock seems to shine out of his brother's face for an incomprehensible second. But then he blinks, and it is gone.

"Dr Watson," Mycroft says, his voice wavering, "I am dying."

* * *

This is a stunning blow.

"What do you have?" John asks, attempting to make his voice gentle. He's aware that he's staring.

Mycroft's lips tremble, but now John can see that this is a symptom, not a personal reaction. "I have Huntingdon's disease. I am entering the middle stage, from which I will not recover. Until now, the bulk of the disease was controlled by medication."

John can't quite take this in; he's mentally cataloguing symptoms, checking off characteristics of the disease. But Mycroft's missing some – if not all – of them. Where is the chorea, where are the impaired cognitive abilities? But he thinks back to his recent encounters with Mycroft, and can recall a few things he'd thought were abnormal: lack of empathy, inability to properly control his facial muscles, a loss of appetite.

But he still can't understand. "You've been sick all this time?"

"I was diagnosed last year, shortly before Sherlock came back to London." He sighs, and reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose with two long, waxy fingers. "So there is your answer, Dr Watson. I am dying, and my brother is sulking. Very typical."

"_Don't_," John warns him. "Don't put this on Sherlock. He's not to blame."

The government agent inclines his head. "True, but for some reason, he thinks he is."

And John immediately, sickeningly, knows why. _His best friend is a Withe_. _Of course. This is why he won't speak to me; why he refuses to explain his depression. He is afraid of exposing me to Mycroft, but he cannot bear to watch him die. _

"There is no hope for you?" he asks, hearing his own voice trembling now.

_Make the choice wisely, John. Know what you're getting into before you act._

Mycroft smiles sadly. "None."

"I am sorry," John says, and means it. "Truly sorry."

"Thank you, Dr Watson," Mycroft says, and rises to his feet, leaning on his umbrella for support. His fingers whiten in their grasp, and John has to physically hold himself back from getting up and taking hold of his elbow, knowing Mycroft will refuse his assistance. He bites the inside of his cheek, his teeth cutting into the soft flesh, and sharpening the dimmed contours of the sitting room.

"I'll get the door."

* * *

When Mycroft goes onto the landing, John offers him his hand. Not in support, but to shake. It is an act of equality, of acknowledging his respect for the other man and his suffering.

And it allows him to see how deep the disease runs in Mycroft's limbs.

As Mycroft goes down the stairs, using both the banister and his umbrella for support, John is shaking, leaning white-faced against the other side of the door. It's true. He's dying. The disease, black and fierce, its long thorny tendrils stretching through his body, is almost to his brain.

He must heal Mycroft, or Sherlock will be destroyed by his grief.

And he knows Sherlock will be terrified when he tells him what he has discovered: not for himself, but for John. It's why Sherlock has been lying to him for weeks, unable to tell him what was wrong.

He was afraid John would find out, and heal Mycroft, and be exposed as a Withe in the process. He's afraid his brother will inform on him, afraid that John would come to much the same end as Marianne Greene.

Sherlock had to choose between the death of his brother and the exposure of John, and he had chosen John.

John is shaking not only because of what he has to do, of what he stands to lose, but because of this truth.

* * *

When his flatmate comes home, John is waiting patiently by the fireplace, sitting in his chair, his hands clasped between his knees. He's not holding his phone. The books are neatly arranged in the bookcase; the afghan is folded and draped over the back of the sofa. There is a cup of warm tea on the coffee table, and a fresh kettle waiting to be started in the kitchen.

And every last one of Mycroft's bugs is gone.

Sherlock comes around the corner, reaching up to take off his scarf. His fingers stutter to a halt, frozen around his neck, as he sees all of this and reaches the sole conclusion.

"It's alright," John says instantly, at the fearful confusion in his friend's face. "Come sit down."

"You know," Sherlock says, and doesn't move. He inhales sharply, drops his hands, and begins to fumble in his pockets, trying to find something.

John knows he's looking for cigarettes; his are actions borne of acute panic.

"It's alright," he says again. "It's fine, Sherlock. I'm not angry with you."

"You're going to do it!" Sherlock snarls, and brings his hands up to his head; his knuckles go white. He clamps his hands against his hair, crushing the curls flat. "You can't! You can't – you won't! John, _listen_ to me!"

"I'm listening," John says, as calmly as he can. He's suppressing his own panic now, even though Sherlock's fears aren't entirely justified. Sherlock is seeing John through the eyes of a grief-stricken brother, a man pressed on every side by seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

Sherlock has just returned from war, a war as personal as it was lonely, and it is tearing him apart, the memories are tearing him apart; they must be as vivid and excruciating as if he was still there. John knows this. He's seen broken soldiers before; he's been one of them.

And now the approaching death of Mycroft is weighing down upon his friend's fragile shoulders, crushing him. Sherlock cannot withstand all of it. Not alone.

"I'm listening, Sherlock."

"_Please_," Sherlock begs him, pleading with him. He drops his hands from his head, holds them out in supplication. "_Please_ don't. Don't help him. Don't do it."

John stands up, careful to move slowly. He doesn't want to startle him. "I won't die. He won't turn me in. Nothing will happen to me. We can trust him."

Sherlock's eyes light with grey fire; he spins around, as if looking for something to throw, and then strides towards John, his feet stumbling over the rug. The scarf slides from his neck, drops into a huddled blue mass on the red fabric. Sherlock's shaking; John can see his fingers trembling in the lamplight.

"He's never trusted _me_! Why should I trust _him?_ He can hurt you, John! He will destroy you!"

"But he won't. Sherlock, look at me. _Look_ at me," and then John has hold of Sherlock's arms, his fingers tight on the slim tendons and bones underneath. "It's alright. It will be alright. I'll save him, and he won't do anything. He's a good man. He's like you, Sherlock. He will do the right thing."

"But how can you know?" Sherlock whispers. There are tears in his eyes; he blinks and one trails down the side of his cheek, sliding over his cheekbone. "How can you know he won't?"

"I can't," John tells him. "I can't. But we have to hope."

Sherlock sags against him, suddenly limp, and John feels a stirring of relief.

"Text him," he says. "Text Mycroft, and tell him to come here. We'll do it here."

* * *

_A/N: I am not an expert by any means whatsoever on the disease mentioned here. If you have any suggestions, I welcome them. Hopefully I've depicted Mycroft's disease realistically, if not with full plausibility. I'd love to hear your reactions._


	7. Chapter Seven: Arc

**_Arc_**

* * *

_A/N: Thank you all for your lovely reviews! I hope this chapter answers some of your questions. It's the second-to-last chapter. Only one left! _

_Enjoy!_

* * *

Thirty-five minutes later. Mycroft hovers uncertainly in the doorway, clearly wondering why his brother had texted him so precipitously. John nods at the empty sofa, and rises from his armchair.

Sherlock is standing before the mantel, his hands deep in the pockets of his coat. As Mycroft comes in, he locks eyes with his brother. For a moment it seems they'll speak to each other, but then both look away, and the tense moment is gone.

"What am I doing here?" Mycroft inquires, allowing John to take his jacket. He's not asking Sherlock; he's asking the opposite wall.

John glances at Sherlock as he drapes the jacket across the back of the sofa. They've agreed that Sherlock doesn't need to explain John's true nature; it shouldn't fall to him, the man without original magic. (And John wants to make sure that Mycroft is aware it is not Sherlock's fault that he has become an Anchor. Nor will he reveal this unless he must.)

Sherlock removes his hands from his pockets, crosses the room, and shuts the door.

Mycroft raises his eyebrows at this clandestine action, but says nothing.

John sits down on the coffee table, directly in front of Mycroft. He can see every worn line on Mycroft's aging face; can see the grey strands scattered through his hair, clustered heavily at his temples. There are two nicks under his chin, red and angry, from where he cut himself while shaving.

John is aware that he is trembling, but he can't stop. Instead of focusing on the tremors, he takes a deep breath, another. He braces himself.

As Mycroft stares at him, utterly confused; as Sherlock stands behind him in silent support, John opens his mouth and speaks. The words fall gently, like autumn leaves over a grave, and his secret rises into the air, never to be taken back.

"I'm a Withe, Mycroft," he says. "I can heal you."

* * *

For a moment he is afraid he has startled him past return: Mycroft's eyes widen until he can see the reddened whites around the full circle of his pupils.

Then he gasps out, "No. No, I did not predict this." He chokes back a tinny laugh, a slight noise almost like a sob, brushes the back of his hand against his suddenly damp forehead.

Sherlock makes a gurgling, strangled sort of sound behind John. Aware of the brothers' rising hysteria, he thinks it is time to intervene.

"Well, what do you want to do?" he asks.

For some reason he doesn't feel frightened any longer, only relieved, vaguely aware that he's breathing slowly; his hands are steady. The pressure in his chest is loosening, breaking apart. Perhaps it is only the adrenaline leaving his body, but he is calm again.

"What do I _want?"_ Mycroft says, breathlessly.

He rises, staggering, leaning heavily on his umbrella – the spines crackle and squeak, protesting under his weight – and looks down at John. "What do I want?"

John nods, gripping his hands together.

And Mycroft swoops down on him, grabs his shoulder in a tight, menacing grasp: his fingers are not shaking now.

John tenses sharply, controlling the impulse to punch him, controlling his soldier's instant reflexes. He must remain calm, even if he doesn't know what Mycroft means to do.

He can hear Sherlock's strained breathing behind him.

"Please, John," Mycroft says, his words quiet, "please, heal me. I will be forever in your debt."

* * *

The process takes only a moment, but it is a long, painful moment.

Mycroft stretches out on the sofa, and John places his hands flat on the government man's chest, directly over his sternum. For a moment he's afraid his magic won't come to him, as he always is when he must heal someone, but then the blue fire rushes down his arms and into his hands. It crashes into Mycroft's chest like a fiery thunderbolt.

The fire consumes him, tearing at the bones of his face and digging claws into his back, curling open in his chest like a furnace. He can't breathe; can't see; but he can feel the magic flowing into Mycroft's chest, enveloping the black vines of disease and burning them away. Mycroft convulses under his hands; John gasps as the blue fire reaches his eyes, flaming in waves of hot and cold, searing into his brain.

Then a thin, strong hand drops onto his shoulder, and the magic relaxes, directs itself properly. The last of the disease dissipates, the final tendrils drop away, curling into vaporization.

Mycroft lies still and exhausted on the sofa. John removes his hands, presses them to his face.

It's difficult to breathe. The sitting room feels stifling.

Sherlock pats John awkwardly on the shoulder, slow solemn pats, and eventually John finds the strength to lower his hands and look at his patient.

Mycroft is sleeping, his mouth parted, his face serene.

"You don't think he'll forget," he says to Sherlock, weary beyond belief. None of his healings have been this difficult, none of them have ever been this painful, consuming, terrifying: but then he's never cured an incurable disease. Only war wounds, and burns, and gashes from shrapnel...

"No," Sherlock agrees. His low hoarse voice sounds as if it comes from far away. "We are very similar, he and I. I doubt he will have forgotten this when he wakes, or have failed to record it. But he won't tell anyone about you. Of that I am now certain. Come on, you should get some rest."

John heaves himself upright, reeling as the floor swims murkily around his feet, but Sherlock has hold of his arm.

"You did... the right thing," he tells him, the words slurring together. "You... were... right."

"No, you were," Sherlock says, and his tone is gentle, sincere. "As usual. Come on, up the stairs. That's it. Don't trip, now, or Mycroft will wake up. And we really can't have that."

John finds himself floating up the stairs, propelled by Sherlock; his bedroom door opens magically, and his bed meets him in a soft embrace.

He is conscious of someone pulling covers over him, speaking to him, but these things drop away, replaced by soothing darkness.

And peace.

He sleeps the sleep of the good man, humble and protected, watched over, cared for, resting there until the new morning.


	8. Chapter Eight: Revitalization

**_Revitalization_**

* * *

_A/N: So, here's the final chapter. Thank you for the kind words, the favs, and the alerts! I hope this chapter succeeds in answering your questions :)._

* * *

They don't see or hear from Mycroft for quite a while. Both men are worried, but they can't bring themselves to talk about it, nor does Sherlock attempt to contact his brother. It is as though Mycroft's healing was a temporary moment, caught in the past, surrounded by an aura of silence and half-imagined outcomes. It is untouchable, and difficult to remember at times. John doesn't know what Mycroft plans to do about his newly regained health, and he's happy to remain in the comfortableness of limbo for a time.

But on Wednesday, when John goes outside to get the mail (rubbing absently at his aching shoulder; he is still not fully himself) there is a small, sealed envelope on the doorstep. He bends down, lifts it between two fingers, traces his thumb over the expensive paper. The seal is a heron, its long-beaked head tucked into its white breast. One black eye considers him coolly.

There's no address, only a typed, cryptic salutation:

* * *

JOHN WATSON

SHERLOCK HOLMES

* * *

John picks up the rest of his mail and goes back inside, contemplative.

* * *

Once upstairs, he puts the other mail down on the table and takes out his pocketknife. "Sherlock, come look at this."

"Hmm?" Sherlock is standing at the kitchen counter, holding a pipette over an open flame with a pair of tongs, his lips pursed in concentration. "What is it?"

"I think Mycroft's sent us a letter." John slips the flat of his pocketknife under the seal, cracks the envelope open, shakes its contents out onto the table. A photograph and a folded note slide onto the stained wood.

Sherlock turns off the Bunsen burner and comes over, frowning, as John picks up the sepia-toned, ancient photograph. Its corners are rounded; the image appears to be of an open wooden box full of silvery tools, set on a grassy lawn.

"Oh," Sherlock says, disbelievingly, taking it away from him. "Oh."

"Are those yours?" John stares past his shoulder at the tiny instruments. "Why did he send you this?"

"Those are my first – my first scalpels," Sherlock breathes. He holds the photo close to his long nose, his eyes scanning over the old brown pixels, transfixed.

"John, this might mean – open the note," he says, interrupting himself. "Open the note."

John unfolds the note.

It is in Mycroft's distinctive slanted handwriting; every 't' is tilted sideways, every 'c' is almost an 'o.'

* * *

_Ms Greene's bar companion has been located and duly punished; Ms. Greene's secret is safe. Dr Watson, you will be pleased to know that I have located her parents. As a token of thanks for the quiet and discerning investigation, they have asked me to give you and Sherlock a copy of this video._

* * *

There is a slim black flash-drive taped to the bottom of the note.

He and Sherlock look at each other, and then they go find John's laptop.

* * *

They watch the video in the sitting room, the laptop balanced on Sherlock's bony knees.

It begins innocuously. A young girl, maybe ten years old, is standing in the middle of a small garden, waving shyly at the camera. There is no sound. Violet-coloured morning glories wind up a trellis behind her; trampled grass lies under her bare feet, and a bare, shining-new brick wall gleams in the background.

The girl has dark pigtails tied with thin blue ribbons, and a gap-toothed, expanding grin. Her feet are planted firmly in the grass, her hands set determinedly on her hips.

As John and Sherlock watch, she turns her back to the camera, kneels, and reaches down into the grass.

The camera moves jerkily, bouncing up and down; the person holding it is walking. Slowly, it pans around the little girl, coming to rest on her upturned face. She is grinning, her face as bright as the warm fire of afternoon daylight.

The camera pans down to her small hands.

Marianne is holding a blue flower as wide as the first section of her thumb.

She lifts her hands. The camera pulls back, and they can see her fully: her thin arms, her knobby, sunburnt knees, her brilliant blue eyes. Her sundress is pale blue and white gingham. She doesn't stand up, only crouches there, looking up into the camera with her hands cupped around the miniscule flower.

Whirling slowly, turning like a pinwheel, the blossom rises from her hands.

It spins before her face, whisks higher, higher.

Marianne is laughing.

The camera pulls away from her, and follows the bobbing forget-me-not until it is lost in the equal blueness of the afternoon sky.

* * *

An hour later, when John is sleeping upstairs (still recovering from Mycroft's strenuous healing), Sherlock settles down in the sitting room to wait for his haemoglobin experiment. Two of his pipettes need to separate into clearer sections of blood and water. He opens a black-bound book titled _Molecular Science: Experimental Data and Conclusions_, and turns to the fifty-first page.

And he runs his forefinger down the fading paragraphs until he finds the right quote.

Quietly, very quietly, he reads it aloud.

_"Resounen with me thisse, thenne: why sholde we strive for thinges out of ouer graspe? Why sholde we seke on on othre? We do thuse thyngies, my frend, bicause we moste. And we moste chose to do thisse before we con not ay langer. I telle you, we con be cherisched. Withe, Ancre, Nowithe: we con alle be loued." _

Then he shuts the book, takes out his phone, and texts Mycroft.

* * *

Two and a half days later, two men meet by the River Thames. One carries a black umbrella; the other's coat collar is turned upward against the breeze.

"You've guessed by now, surely," the curly-haired man says, his eyes turned away to the horizon.

The umbrella carrier nods. His cheeks are flushed; his eyes clear; his stance youthful, steady. "I must admit I was as surprised as when – as when my health was recovered. But I thought about your friend's – differences – for a while, and I realized there may be an underlying reason for your strong friendship."

The other man inclines his head. Darting swifts rise and dive over the turning water of the Thames.

"It's not the only reason," he says, reaching up to push back his shifting black hair as the wind tugs at it. "Not at all."

"I know," the other man replies, a bit too quickly. "I know that. But what – how are you different, now? I've read some of the studies – Troilus, you know – how has the world changed for you? Has it?"

His voice is eager, interested; the curly-haired man glances swiftly at him.

"You want to know?"

"Yes, I want to know," the other snaps back. "It is a gift. You must see that."

"Yes, well," his brother says, shrugging away his surprise, his eyes unbelieving, "I didn't think you'd see it that way. I thought – you know what I thought. There are problems with this; people can't know. Even meeting here is not – good."

"I've arranged for the proper precautions, Sherlock," the other replies. "We can talk freely. Really, though, you thought I would turn him in? Your best friend?"

"I _knew_ you would," Sherlock says, and his tone is dark with old anger. "I know you, Mycroft. Or I thought I did. You've... changed."

"Perhaps the prospect of death has altered my view on living," Mycroft muses, "but yes, I have. I'm not sure why, but it's there." He pauses. "But I can promise you, Dr. Watson will remain untouched. The same for you, of course. No one will know."

"No one can _ever_ know," his brother corrects him fiercely.

Mycroft nods. "I promise."

For a moment longer, they stand together against the flickering backdrop of London, watching as the dark river sweeps away the last of their fears.

Then Sherlock turns away, tucks his hands into his pockets.

"Thursday?" Mycroft says to his back.

"Thursday," Sherlock replies.

As he walks away, his tall form vanishing into the misty tree-lined pathway, Mycroft looks after him. To the east the sun is rising, an orange ember lifting from a nest of smoky clouds, and on his cold face he feels the gentle touch of strengthening sunlight. Once again, he wonders what Sherlock sees with his Anchored eyes, and he smiles.

* * *

To Sherlock, the uplifted arms and shoulders of the brown-barked trees look as though they have been stencilled on the sky. They are as clear and vibrant as calligraphy. He breathes in the freshness of very early morning: the damp grass underfoot, the stolid thump of paving stones, the dull grittiness of London sewers. The hefty waft of steaming bread.

Invigoration. He draws deeper breaths, swings his arms at his sides. Glimmering, gimpy-footed pigeons scuttle away from his shadow, bobbing under the small tables of an outdoor Chinese restaurant, and Sherlock thinks of John and Reichenbach Falls. The dead pigeon his friend had found at the Thames, motionless in death on the riverbank – before. How it had been so broken and lifeless in the mud.

But the stealthy, creeping images fall away when he remembers Mycroft's healing, when he remembers how the pain and mortality had dropped from his brother's lined face. How John had sighed with relief and exhaustion afterwards, slept silently for many serene hours. How there hadn't been any more talk of death.

Mycroft is back, and John is safe.

He thinks of this, and his steps quicken as he draws nearer to Baker Street.

It is a new day, and Sherlock Holmes is almost home.

**_La Fin_**

* * *

_A/N: Troilus' quote, in proper English: _

_"Reason with me this, then: why should we strive for things beyond our grasp? Why should we seek one another? We do these things, my friend, because we must. And we must choose to do this before we cannot any longer. I tell you, we can be cherished. Withe, Anchor, Nowithe: we can all be loved."_

_Thank you all very much for reading!_


End file.
